


Devotion

by lynnmonster



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 19:40:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynnmonster/pseuds/lynnmonster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lewis is the old dog who is afraid he's missed a trick.  In the process of sniffing out answers, he digs up Pandora's box.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Devotion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AwkwardAnnie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwkwardAnnie/gifts).



> Many thanks to my betas, who made me write the bit that shouldn't have been left out.

“How did you know?”

“Sir?” Hathaway asked, face bland and unrevealing. Robbie was fairly certain that habitual calm look was actually hiding something this time, but he couldn’t fathom what or why.

“You were certain she didn’t do it, even though all signs pointed to yes.” Hathaway made a sound of protest, but Robbie held up his hand and barreled onward. “I know, I know, you didn’t say anything. I know _why_ you didn’t say anything, because we follow the facts. But you had a firm conviction this time, don’t think I didn’t notice. You kept it to yourself -- good lad -- and followed proper procedure, but you were digging around for something else the entire time where anybody else -- where I -- wouldn’t have thought needed a look-see.”

Hathaway angled his head away. It wasn’t quite a flinch, but Robbie recognized it as indicating shame nonetheless. That was all wrong. That wasn’t what Robbie wanted, he had honestly meant his earlier praise. He just wanted to _know_. What had Hathaway seen, what had Robbie missed?

The question continued to nag at him as he ate his microwaved ready meal standing at the kitchen counter. It bothered him while he made one last cup of tea. He found himself dwelling on it as he cleaned his teeth, and once he settled into bed without even the minor distractions of the evening, he finally turned his thoughts to the facts of the matter with full focus.

Hathaway had been looking elsewhere almost right from the start. He must have found something during the first interview with the murdered barrister’s assistant, just after their arrival on the scene but before she had become the primary suspect -- a position that she would retain in the eyes of the department for most of the investigation. That must have been when whatever it was had come to light, because never once had Hathaway been more than dubiously silent on the subject of her probable guilt, and a number of times he had deflected their conversations away from Madeline-call-me-Maddy and onto other potential perpetrators or other topics entirely.

There _had_ been an oddly charged moment that first day. Hathaway had been taking the assistant’s statement with his customary bland detachment -- which drove smartarse, know-it-all criminals absolutely batty, Lewis could always tell that Hathaway both knew and enjoyed that fact -- when he’d suddenly snapped to clear attentiveness. Hathaway’s posture hadn’t even changed, nothing so obvious as that, but it had suddenly become infused with such focused intent that Robbie couldn’t help but notice.

He had paused mid-sentence in his own conversation with the responding officers and mentally replayed what he’d overheard of Hathaway’s interview -- but some fervent declaration by the woman to the effect of “he was such a good man” was all that had been loud enough to overhear. It had also sounded passionate enough to give that batty eye doctor’s receptionist from the wife-swapping case a run for her money, but at the time, he couldn’t find anything in it to warrant such a remarkable response from his sergeant, so he’d dismissed it and resumed his discussion with the policemen, making a mental note to ask Hathaway about it later. Perhaps it was as clear-cut a case as it had begun to seem, and the girl with the bloodstained hands did it after all.

But hours later, when they were summarizing their findings of the day for Chief Superintendent Innocent, Hathaway hadn’t mentioned anything one way or the other so Robbie had let it go.

He was beginning to think that had been a mistake.

 

* * *

Some cases were never solved. Some questions were never satisfactorily answered. But this case had been solved: Maddy the assistant had simply been the first person to find the barrister’s body and had touched it, tried to help, clutched him to her when it became clear that he was well and truly dead, and had unthinkingly picked up the statuette that had bashed his head in to put it back on its place on his desk. There were no irritating loose ends: the barrister, Dewhurst, had been bludgeoned to death by his estranged step-sister, who blamed him for her abandonment by their father and, apparently, all her subsequent ill luck in life.

There was no good reason for Robbie to dwell on a case so thoroughly closed, except for personal reasons. He found he was unwilling to let it go nonetheless, due to some combination of the sting to his professional pride, the recognition of an opportunity to improve his own methodology, and an uncomfortable but undeniable concern for the sensitivity his sergeant had displayed when he’d brought it up. A lingering sense of guilt for making Hathaway feel _ashamed_ of all things when in fact he had hoped to make him feel the opposite cemented his determination to get to the bottom of things.

Unfortunately, Hathaway was being uncooperative.

“It was just a feeling,” he said.

Robbie pressed his fingers against his temples to relieve some of his frustration.

“I knew I couldn’t let it be important. I did let it influence me, a little, but only -- it only made me work harder.”

“I _know_ , lad.” Robbie gripped his shoulder and Hathaway went rigid under his touch. “I know. You did well. That’s what I’m telling you.” Hathaway’s posture thawed a little and Robbie squeezed once before letting go. “I’m just trying to figure out what you picked up on that I missed.”

Hathaway shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you, sir. May I go back to this report, now?”

Robbie made a noise of disgust and gave up, but only for the time being.

 

* * *

Robbie tried to ferret it out the next time they went to the pub, once Hathaway had put away a few pints.

“I thought this was our table at the pub, not an interrogation room,” Hathaway observed testily.

They’d gone out in the first place to try to relax after a day of questioning some of Oxford’s wealthiest residents and facing Innocent’s unhappiness with them afterwards. Perhaps this wasn’t the best time.

“Don’t mind me. Like a dog with a bone, I am,” he said, and convinced Hathaway to stay put while he got up to order the next round in unspoken apology.

 

* * *

There _was_ no better time, as it turned out, since Hathaway was proving resistant to his curiosity under any and all conditions. But Robbie was an investigator down to the soles of his flat-footed shoes, so one evening he followed Hathaway home, accepted a cup of tea, and proceeded to make a nuisance of himself.

He took a seat and settled in to badger his sergeant across his own kitchen table. "Now, listen," he said firmly, and Hathaway rolled his eyes.

"Tell me you're not on about this again," Hathaway said.

"I don't care if it's something you think is unprofessional. I'm not going to judge you.” Hathaway snorted, but Robbie ignored it. “Just tell me why you believed her when she was literally standing there red-handed.”

Hathaway’s eyebrows climbed, as if he were surprised that Robbie had pinpointed the timing, at least, of the source of his belief in Maddy.

“Come on, then. Tell us,” Robbie coaxed.

“It’s not--” Hathaway ran a hand down his face and exhaled heavily. “It’s not anything concrete. She told me he was a good man. She told me she would do anything for him, would never do anything to harm him. I . . . I believed her, that’s all,” he said quietly.

“She was in love with him, then?”

“Probably.” Hathaway shrugged. “Possibly. I just -- I recognized what she meant.”

“How d’you mean?”

Hathaway was silent for a long moment.

“As you know, for some time I trained to live a life of devotion,” Hathaway said slowly, looking down at his own hands turning his mug of tea around and around in his grasp. He set the thing down with a small _clack_. “It appears to be a lifestyle that comes naturally to me.”

The implications settled over Robbie with an electric prickling sensation, becoming more pronounced the longer Hathaway stared at the tabletop and the higher the flush crept up his ears.

“You can’t be serious,” Robbie protested weakly.

“Then I must be joking,” Hathaway said with a small smirk.

“That’s, that’s ridiculous,” he said. “You--”

_Don’t want to do this job without me._

_Don’t have anyone else._

_Stopped dating entirely, some time ago._

_Are always available to me, whether for a case or stop at the pub or the chippie._

_Bully me into letting you cook a “real dinner” at mine every few weeks._

_Let me follow you into your flat and harass you about something you don’t even want to talk about._

_...Never said anything._

His jaw slammed shut and tensed with anger. Frustration. Panic. Something like that. “Are you telling me -- and you never _said_ anything?”

Infuriatingly, Hathaway looked more relaxed than he had all week. “What exactly was I meant to say, sir?”

“I don’t know, something! Or was it ‘just a feeling,’ too?” Robbie spat out.

The angrier Robbie got, the more relaxed Hathaway appeared to be. “Actually, sir, at this point it doesn’t particularly matter what you think about it.”

“It-- what?” Robbie asked. He was more confused than agitated, finally. That was possibly the last thing he expected to hear in the course of this utterly improbable conversation.

Hathaway regarded him steadily. “It’s far too late.”

Robbie gawped at him.

“What I’m saying is that, basically, it’s a done deal, sir. I have been fundamentally altered. My internal compass points Lewisward. I am constant and my course has been set.”

Outrageous. Completely outrageous. Robbie was outraged. “You ridiculous sod,” Robbie said.

“Well. Yes.” Hathaway gave him a tiny, smirky little smile. Robbie replayed what he’d said, and the damned electric prickles descended upon him again. They heralded discomfort and excitement in equal measure.

“So, that’s...” Robbie trailed off, but it wasn’t in his nature to shy away from difficult conversations.  If it were, he’d never get his job done, for starters. “What do you expect to happen now?”

“I don’t expect anything.” 

“Well, then, what do you _want_?”

Hathaway shrugged. “Nothing. Everything. Anything, I suppose.”

“Well, that’s clear as mud. Thanks.”

Hathaway took a deep breath and looked at Robbie, straight on.  “I want to continue to work with you, for as long as you continue working.  I want to spend time with you outside of work, if you’re--  If you’re still comfortable with that.”

“Of course I am, don’t be daft.  But that’s just like always.”

“Yes, you see now why I wasn’t really pressed to say anything.”

“Granted.  But what about --” _What about that smirky little smile?_ Robbie hadn’t actually been able to forget about that, not since Hathaway had pointed it in his direction.  He was beginning to feel a little cheated.  He made a vague gesture between the two of them.  “What about anything else?”

Hathaway looked truly surprised.  “Anything else? Sir?”

“ _You_ know.”

Hathaway’s eyebrows climbed ever higher.  “I suppose I do,” he said.  “If anything else were on the table, I would count myself extraordinarily lucky.” 

Robbie allowed that thought to settle in for just a moment.  James Hathaway -- lanky, blond, intellectual, deep-voiced, terribly sarcastic, ridiculously devoted James Hathaway -- was seriously interested in him.   _Wanted_ things from him.  It could be readily inferred that James Hathaway wanted to be kissed by him. (James Hathaway, in all honesty, had heavily implied that he wanted considerably more than that.)   

“I have no idea why you’d consider yourself to be the lucky one in that scenario,” Robbie said, his voice coming out a bit on the scratchy side.  “But if you really believe that, perhaps you should pick up a Lotto ticket on your way to meet me at the pub tomorrow, yeah?”

This time, Hathaway’s small smile wasn’t smirky at all. “Yeah,” he agreed.


End file.
